Re: Running vs starting apps

["Michael T. Babcock" <mbabcock cytech on ca>]

Alan wrote:

> I think part of it is on a PDA you really only have one app running at once.
> If you are on a PC you have finite resources, so you can't run everything at
> once.  This harkens a bit to how staroffice/office/etc do it when they don't
> say "start ms word" but just 'create new document', or 'create new spread
> sheet', or 'create new image'.

Actually, on a Newton Messagepad, there is a difference between having just one
app open (even full screen) and having 7 or 10 apps open, but the concept of a
'task bar' to switch between them is an external program -- Apple's design was to
simply close one app to use another, allow them to overlap in their windows to
share info back and forth, or to click their icon in the launcher to bring them to
the foreground.

> This could be an interesting path to go.  Instead of starting up gimp you
> select 'make a new image' or 'make a new gmc window'.  If the app is open, it's
> new document is called, if not it's started first and then new is called.  Of
> course, this sort of paradime doesn't work well for things like xterms (sure,
> create new terminal works, but it doesn't really continue with the "document"
> style).

This is something I advocated about a year ago w.r.t. my concept of a universal
file-type (mime type?) based new + open file application -- you double click a
file and the launcher checks to see what programs can handle it, gives you your
most recently used and/or most recently used program _for that file_ and then
describes the actions each is capable of (marketing drivel written by the app
authors).  Ditto for starting a new file ... just like the right-click context
menu on Windows "New > Text document / Word Document / Excel Spreadsheet / Wav
file / etc." ... but better.

I don't think it would/should replace the current application centric system; it
can be joined to the current system without much overhead and allow users to
either be application or document centric.  With enough RAM, you can allow your
desktop to decide which applications you need open for you ... in reality, we
should have a system that monitors which files a user uses with which programs and
precache libraries / binaries for them based on work patterns ... but that gets
arguments started with some people :-).

--
Michael T. Babcock (PGP: 0xBE6C1895)
http://www.fibrespeed.net/~mbabcock/